A couple of years before we took the church at Hardmead into our care, two masons, Stedman and Hollowell were on the roof repairing the medieval crenellations. They used a small tin to make a time capsule, and buried it within the walls.

Last week, we unearthed it.

1/5
It’s just over 40yrs old, but finding a time capsule is such a thrill. It’s meeting a person who worked on this church before you. It’s a reminder that we “are only trustees for those that come after us”. That we’re just fleeting moments in the long lives of these places.

2/5
Elsewhere, we found a scrunched-up newspaper – the front page of the Daily Worker from Tuesday 1st April 1947. Perhaps one of Hardmead’s earlier workers had been reading about Clement Attlee, MI5, and the price of tangerines on their lunch-break.

3/5
The Daily Worker was founded by the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1930, but at the time our Hardmead reader was clutching a copy, it was an independent readers' co-operative – as proudly stated on the cover.

4/5
It’s a long shot, but I wonder if anyone knows who our Hardmead masons might be…?

I’m excited for what else we might discover during our repairs, and we will, of course, leave a small record of our team, to be discovered by posterity.

5/5

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More from @friendschurches

20 Nov
In 2009, we found St Edmund’s head all over again. This time, it was under hundreds of years of paint and plaster - not in a woods guarded by a wolf…

#thread
Edmund was an Anglo-Saxon Christian king who ruled East Anglia in the 9th century. He was killed in battle by Danish invaders. Legend has it Edmund was captured alive; whipped and lashed while tied to a tree, then shot with arrows and decapitated.

2/
His head was cast away in the forest. A grey wolf guarded it. Some of Edmund's supporters found the head of the king, which miraculously reunited with his body, and was then buried in a small chapel...

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24 Oct
The restoration of Papworth St Agnes is one of our greatest success stories. But in 1979 it looked like this. The stained glass had been cut out, the roof tiles lay in piles ready to be sold, the font was thrown into the churchyard. A demolition order had been published.
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The Domesday Book of 1086 records a church in this Cambridgeshire village, but today, the earliest surviving fabric dates to the 15th century. Interestingly, at this time, the hamlet was the family seat of Sir Thomas Malory, author of Le Morte d’Arthur in 1469.
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In the mid-19th century, the distinguished Ecclesiologist, J.H. Sperling arrived as the new rector. Sperling had a habit of rebuilding churches and Papworth St Agnes would be no different. He's responsible for the distinctive chequerboard patterning of flint and clunch.
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20 Oct
In 1914, Emile de Vynck, his wife and baby arrived in North Wales. Their home in Malines, Belgium had been bombed. Lloyd George found houses for several displaced families in Gwynedd, and took the de Vynck family into his own home in Criccieth.
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On 16th October 1914, Emile was interviewed by The Cambrian News:
“I left Malines when the Germans bombarded it for the fifth time. Nearly everyone fled the day after the German brutes entered the town. In terror we rushed to another village. 2/
A kindly farmer hid us in his barn and we lay there on the straw. When we woke we escaped to Duffel and from there to Bruges where we arrived at midnight and found the town in darkness. Two ladies gave us hospitality and the next day at a very early hour we went on to Ostend. 3/
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15 Oct
At St David's, Llangeview, Monmouthshire, 18th century ledgerstones commemorating James Blower, Mary Jones and James Meredith lay before the wooden altar rail with its twisted balusters, made in the same century. And more can be seen in the nave.
The name 'ledger' comes from Old English via the Middle English words lygger, ligger or leger - to lie down. There are an estimated 250,000 surviving ledgerstones in churches in England and Wales, most from the late 17th to late 18th centuries.
The chancel was the usual resting place for members of the clergy, while the nave was usually the option for those with the financial means and local influence — from aristocracy and gentry to families of middle class professionals and tradesmen.
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13 Oct
The church at Castlemartin cuts into a steeply sloping rock bank. Perhaps the proximity to a stream and two holy wells gave this site spiritual significance... Or perhaps, nestled in a tree-lined hollow, it offered invisibility from marauders coming from the sea...

#thread Image
This Pembrokeshire site is encircled by earth-banked encampments, possibly prehistoric, and an ancient burial mound, while several early pilgrim paths lead to the church. A 7th-9th century carved cross was found in the churchyard in 1922, but hasn't been seen for decades...

2/ Image
Architecturally, we can place the church in the late 12th century when the parish enjoyed wealth and status due the abundance of fertile, lime-rich soil in which crops thrive. The massive scalloped font and north arcade are the oldest visible remains of this early church.

3/ Image
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11 Oct
This is the most important #thread we’ve ever written.

The Church Commissioners are running a consultation that makes deeply worrying proposals that we believe would diminish the democracy of the church closure process, and reduce transparency and accountability of the Church.
In summary, the consultation seeks to make it faster and easier to close churches. They propose dispensing with expert advice from bodies such as Church Buildings Council and the Statutory Advisory Committee, and limiting rights to object to closure or reuse schemes.

2/
Trying to squeeze this into a tweet is going to be hard, but I will do my best.

There’s a piece of legislation called the Mission & Pastoral Measure (MPM) which, among other things, governs the disposal of churches no longer needed for regular public worship.

3/
Read 13 tweets

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